This invention generally relates to armament systems; and more specifically, to an armament system that may be employed with a multitude of different types of weapons or stores.
An armament system for contemporary, complex weapons often includes a multitude of stations, each of which is adapted to be connected to a respective store to operate the store. For reasons of cost effectiveness and force readiness, it is highly desirable to design an armament system for these modern complex weapons so that each station of the armament system may be used with a multitude of different types of stores. An aircraft having such an armament system might be armed in a variety of different ways at different times. For example, the aircraft may be armed with a multitude of air-to-air missiles on one occasion, with a multitude of air-to-surface missiles on another occasion, and with an approximately equal mix of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles on still another occasion.
The task of designing an armament system that has this flexibility is difficult because of the complexity of and differences between the weapons themselves. To elaborate, many of these modern weapons include a microprocessor and software programs to help operate the weapons, and different types of weapons may have quite different software programs that require different input data and that generate different output data. Moreover, different types of weapons operate in different ways and require different specific signals to actuate various weapon components in the proper manner and sequence. Any armament station that is used with a multitude of such weapon types must be able to generate all of the proper input data and signals for each weapon type, and to process properly all the output signals and data transmitted from each weapon type.